"What's the highest BAC you ever recorded?" 

I remember a couple of high .2s (maybe .27, .28), but I never had a .3 on a breathalyzer. 

The highest BAC I ever got back on a report was .38.  That was via blood test at the hospital after the driver took out a concrete light pole.


"So Friday night was typically just a booze fest, and one year we ended up at a club with one of those BAC meters you blow into with a straw. Those things are ordinarily as reliable as Aaron Miles trying to field a routine ground ball at shortstop, so for kicks and giggles one of my buddies gives it a try and blows a .44. He turns to the rest of us, shouts "I'm legally dead!!" and we all high-five him."

I really wish I hadn't read this part with a mouthful of soda.  Time to go get some paper towels.

Fors and Artie are really bringing some good stories to the board today.

Max wrote:

We had an eighth grade girl here die recently with BAC over .4.  Our oldest is in eighth grade now, but at a different school; we try to teach her the "wise people learn from the mistakes of others" approach to life lessons, such that, if any good can come from this poor girl's death, maybe it can make some others think twice. 

Alas, local news doesn't do a great job following up stories, so it's still a bit unclear as to who provided the alcohol and what she'd been drinking, but to get that much alcohol in a little kid I'm guessing it was a sweetened hard liquor concoction, like everclear punch or jello vodka shots. 

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/10/24/2741322/blood-test-shows-bellingham-middle.html

That's tragic, but I'm wondering how in the world she even got home and made it to bed without anyone noticing that she was that drunk. You'd think she wouldn't even be able to open a door if she was .40. As you say, maybe some Blow Your Lunch Punch or grain alcohol kicked in hard all of a sudden, but an eighth grade girl usually hasn't built up anywhere near any kind of tolerance to drink more than a couple of beers and not be totally legless.
And why did the parents/guardians let an eighth grader stay out until 2 a.m.? My kid is only a seventh grader, but if he was unsupervised at that hour, I'd have the National Guard out looking for him.

artie_fufkin wrote:

Max wrote:

We had an eighth grade girl here die recently with BAC over .4.  Our oldest is in eighth grade now, but at a different school; we try to teach her the "wise people learn from the mistakes of others" approach to life lessons, such that, if any good can come from this poor girl's death, maybe it can make some others think twice. 

Alas, local news doesn't do a great job following up stories, so it's still a bit unclear as to who provided the alcohol and what she'd been drinking, but to get that much alcohol in a little kid I'm guessing it was a sweetened hard liquor concoction, like everclear punch or jello vodka shots. 

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/10/24/2741322/blood-test-shows-bellingham-middle.html

That's tragic, but I'm wondering how in the world she even got home and made it to bed without anyone noticing that she was that drunk. You'd think she wouldn't even be able to open a door if she was .40. As you say, maybe some Blow Your Lunch Punch or grain alcohol kicked in hard all of a sudden, but an eighth grade girl usually hasn't built up anywhere near any kind of tolerance to drink more than a couple of beers and not be totally legless.
And why did the parents/guardians let an eighth grader stay out until 2 a.m.? My kid is only a seventh grader, but if he was unsupervised at that hour, I'd have the National Guard out looking for him.

Yeah, well those were questions going through the reader's comments.  Many people wanted to show some deference to the family, but others were more harsh.  There were comments that the family was known to be highly dysfunctional, as if that needs saying given the circumstances.  Clearly there's a story there but it's not being told well.  Here's one hypothesis:

Googling her name led to an account on a Juggaloes website.  Juggaloes are active around her and perhaps she was involved in some kind of party/initiation with them and no one wants to talk about it, including the parents.

artie_fufkin wrote:

Forgive my ignorance, but WTF is a Juggalo?

They are fans of the band Insane Clown Posse, who little by little have become akin to a street gang, or at least are recognized as such by the FBI.  What I have gleaned is that typically they're disturbed white disaffected suburban kids who find solace in numbers, doing the stupid stuff that disturbed white disaffected suburban kids do.

I learned of them via another local story.  Picking my wife up from work one night, the highway was full of screaming emergency vehicles, and the parking lot of her workplace had mulitples ambulances and squad cars.  I looked the story up the next day and it seems that several Juggaloes accosted a Hispanic gang-member known for causing trouble.  The gang member pulled a knife and a Juggalo wound up dead.  The story in the local paper told almost nothing, but the reader's comments filled in all the details. 

http://reason.com/blog/2011/10/28/the-vast-juggalo-conspiracy

"The vehicle smashed through the mailbox, crossed the driveway, jumped a small stone decorative wall, crashed through a fence and then proceeded into a field. It continued about 300 feet through the field, then veered back toward the road. It crashed back through the fence and hit two trees — exposing the roots of one of them — before coming to its final resting place against the third tree."

Seems like a lot of effort to avoid a deer. I'm just sayin' ...

Last edited by artie_fufkin (12/04/2012 10:12 am)

"The night before the accident, Freese was at Guns ‘N Hoses, the boxing event that pits cops against firefighters and benefits BackStoppers. So maybe he was tired."

FWIW, if Freese was at Guns 'N Hoses, it's entirely possible he hooked up with a half dozen women and hadn't been to sleep yet by 2:00 p.m. Thursday afternoon.  The "he fell asleep" theory is certainly plausible.

Last edited by forsberg_us (12/04/2012 11:20 am)

APIAD wrote:

When people say they swerved to miss a deer I assume it is just as likely they swerved to miss a purple elephant.

A 600-pound purple elephant?